Stieg Larsson, My Friend - Kurdo Baksi [34]
Stieg would sometimes amuse himself by presenting us with various quotations, challenging us to identify the sources. For him it was all a sort of game.
“‘Nature,’” he would say, looking mischievous, “‘has landed women with broad hips and a large bottom – and hence has obviously indicated that women should sit around and look after the house.’”
“No idea. Maybe some mullah or other in Iran?”
“Wrong. Martin Luther.”
It was obvious how pleased he was when our guesses were so wide of the mark. It was as if that proved the thesis he was putting forward.
“How about this one, then? ‘The fundamental fault of the female character is that it has no sense of justice.’”
“Arthur Schopenhauer.”
To my great surprise I was sometimes able to guess correctly. That would earn me a nod of acknowledgement.
But on this occasion, I couldn’t resist turning the heat up a bit. I said, “You like to quote white European men. But surely you’re not suggesting that women outside Europe have a better time of it than European women? According to Muslim sharia law, a woman may inherit only half of what a man can inherit. The evidence of two women is the equivalent of that of one man, and in many parts of the world women are not allowed to choose their own partners, or have control of their own bodies. There must be different levels in hell, surely?”
I had the impression that Stieg’s thoughts had shot off somewhere else. He liked to be opposed, but at the same time disliked it. Stieg the snorting warhorse had been aroused. The quotation game was fun, but this was something completely different. This inspired his fighting spirit. He enjoyed arguments and liked to be provoked, provided it was at the right level and on the right day.
“O.K.,” he said, “what conclusions can we draw? Women are oppressed globally. Every day, all over the world, women are mutilated, murdered, ill-treated, circumcised, by men rich and poor. It might happen in South Africa, Saudi Arabia, Norway, Mexico, Tibet or Iran. But the fact is that there’s no such thing as soft or hard oppression of women: men want to own women, they want to control women, they are afraid of women. Men hate women. The oppression of women has nothing to do with religion or ethnicity.”
He was obviously agitated. It was as if he had listened to his own words and was furious about the way things were in the world. That very day I had also been attacked in several polemical articles on honour killings. Expressen’s leader page was particularly scathing about me. Obviously, Stieg was aware of this. He had read every word, and I knew that he wished me well. But now he had gone into his characteristic fighting mode, and had no intention of mincing his words in order to spare me.
At first I thought he was just a bit annoyed with me, but I soon realized that in fact he was really upset and disappointed.
“I get so angry with you,” he said, staring hard at me. “Just like all the rest of the polemicists, you never mention both Fadime’s first and family names when you write about her. That’s unacceptable. You can’t afford not to give a murdered woman’s full name. You especially can’t afford that.”
“You never get the questions you want to answer in an interview or a debate,” I said. “You have to answer the questions the media put to you.”
He didn’t want to listen to excuses like that, and brushed the argument aside with a snort.
“The relative status of the sexes is all too obvious in what journalists write about criminal cases. Male victims are always given their full names in the newspapers. How names are used is related to a person’s position and status in society. That’s what I want you to understand. You must always use Fadime’s first and family names in future.”
I promised to do so, but he was far from finished with me. He had got into his stride and I could tell that he was about to launch into a lecture.